Better The Devil You Know
An old face makes a reappearance as you and a New Canton runner search for knowledge in a crumbling library. Cast * Sam Yao * Ellie Maxted * Bernard Prior * Tom De Luca Plot No-one Wants Moonchild Back Today's run is to the library for medical books on hypnosis. Sam reassures you no-one will think any less of you for not wanting to drag up the past with Moonchild again. Be There In No Time You're joined by Ellie Maxted, an anthropologist and historian from New Canton. She's keen to try to save as much as possible from this library. Bookworms Are Mostly Harmless Upon arriving at the library Ellie regales you with tales of fights over books. An Actual Maggot? Ellie finds the library's backup card catalogues and checks where you'll find the books you need. As you're both deciding on some other books to preserve, you're interrupted by the resident librarian zombie! Rescue Some Books Once you've lost the zom, you discover Bernard engaging in book-related anger management therapy. Sam tells you to hurry it up after seeing bits of building falling off. Exposed To The Light Sam manages to get the security lights on. Unfortunately your group can now also be seen by someone who's armed, dangerous, and not happy you're there. Just Be Quick You flee down the stairs and Sam suggests you forget about the books, but Ellie convinces him the knowledge is worth the risk. Across The Building It's now a race to collect the books before getting shot. You find an escape route but it's blocked by some kind of... nest. You decide to take your chances with the zombie librarian. Race You Back Home As soon as Sam gets a good look at the shooter he recognises him - it's Janine's brother Tom! Ellie suggests using your books as weapons against a growing pack of zoms, but before you can, Tom's dispatched them all, and you escape. Transcript SAM YAO: I know we’ve talked about this, but really, Five – you don’t have to do it. We have other options to find out everything Moonchild knew about this Viking cure. Alright, not a lot of other options, but some. Paula hasn’t deteriorated for a couple of weeks. What I’m saying is, even if you find those medical texts about hypnosis, we don’t have to use them. Maxine just wants to take a look. She reckons she might be able to put you into a light trance, and that might help you recover memories of whatever Moonchild told you about the Vikings. I mean, if she did, which we don’t know she did! It’s just a run to the library for now. Alright. Covering fire! gunshots Raise the gates! siren, gates raising And go. New Canton are sending one of their new Ministry secondments with you, as close as the Ministry could find to a Viking expert. I think I know her, actually. She’ll rendezvous on the way. And uh, yeah, they say that the university library’s not so structurally sound anymore, so you’ll need to be quick in and quick out. And you still don’t have to do it. No one will think less of you. None of us wants Moonchild back. footsteps ELLIE MAXTED: Hey, you’re the Abel runner, yes? Ellie Maxted, anthropologist, general ancient history nerd. Started out at Abel, left to do some field work for the Ministry on setting up successful small communities. Now back at New Canton, working with you on your exciting Viking lead, and helping New Canton set up small communities. That seems like my specialism now. Who’d have thought anthropology would come in handy in an apocalypse after all? SAM YAO: Ellie Maxted! Do you not know Runner Five? Shot down Van Ark’s helicopter with a rocket launcher, the hero of the ice cream tower, friend of the King? ELLIE MAXTED: Yeah. Runner Five. Yeah. It’s just – listen, it’s just that I knew the first Runner Five pretty well, okay? Sergeant Ellis and me, we were friends. It just feels weird to call someone else Runner Five. SAM YAO: Oh, Ellie. ELLIE MAXTED: I might go with Abel Runner for now? SAM YAO: Yeah, yeah, we all get that. So, you come to this library often? ELLIE MAXTED: laughs Only every other day since I arrived at New Canton. It’s an ongoing project. This is a copyright library. Had one copy of every book printed in the UK. And the building’s collapsing, and there’s damp… every book we lose, for all we know, it’s gone forever. SAM YAO: Yeah, but you can get it all on Rofflenet, right? ELLIE MAXTED: Only a tiny fraction of books were on the internet, let alone Rofflenet. SAM YAO: Yeah, but the important stuff. ELLIE MAXTED: Depends what you think’s important! Obviously, we’re not going to lose Austen or Shakespeare, but what about minor field studies that might turn out to be the last record of some indigenous group wiped out by zoms? What about histories of Finland? For all we know, there’s no one left in Finland at all. SAM YAO: Yeah… just a sec. It’s got a copy of every book published in the UK? ELLIE MAXTED: Every one. SAM YAO: Right. Okay. So, there were these novel tie-ins of this TV program, Jimmy’s Jaunts? Couldn’t have one of those, could it? ELLIE MAXTED: Definitely would. Want us to pick them up for you? SAM YAO: Oh, I couldn’t… Yes. Yes, yes, I would, yes. Yes, yes, please, yes. ELLIE MAXTED: No problemo! Come on, Abel Runner. We’ll be at the library in no time. opens and closes ELLIE MAXTED: Welcome to the library, Abel Runner. My little domain. Sort of. SAM YAO: Uh, yeah. Just booted up the cams, and why is there an enormous graffiti of “Spurs Rules” on the wall, with a footballer standing on a pile of zombies? ELLIE MAXTED: Oh. We’re not the only people who come here. There are all sorts of people who are trying to destroy books. I think whoever did that has been slowly burning all the books about Arsenal, to write them out of history. It’s sick, really. But I can only save so much. I saw a knife fight break out once in here over some Delia Smith cookbooks. SAM YAO: Two people wanted them? ELLIE MAXTED: I think one of them just really disagreed with her take on trout a la grecque. But really, it’s fine. Bookworms are almost never dangerous. And we’ll be in and out faster than Jimmy can jaunt. Come on. SAM YAO: whispers You find anything yet? ELLIE MAXTED: whispers Thank goodness for backup card catalogues. There are medical textbooks on hypnosis on the fourth floor, and Jimmy’s Jaunts on the sixth, and some archaeology textbooks I’ve had my eye on on the ninth. I say we start at the top and work our way down. Oh, and now I do random picksies. SAM YAO: whispers And when that’s at home, it’s - ELLIE MAXTED: whispers I just choose a couple of random cards. I figure I shouldn’t let my personal biases dictate what’s preserved for humanity. Let the gods of randomness decide! SAM YAO: whispers What if you just end up with phone books? ELLIE MAXTED: whispers I bet future historians will be really interested to see some phone books. Here, Abel Runner – pick a card, any card. rustles A History of Fever in Georgian Society, great choice! And mine is – rustles Ooh, The Collected Papers of a Seminar on Slug Reproduction! Sam, I was meaning to ask – why are we whispering? Is it an operational thing, or - ? SAM YAO: whispers Oh. I don’t know. It’s a library. It just brought it out in me. ELLIE MAXTED: laughs I mean, there’s no need anymore. No more zombie students here. I cleared them out months ago. There was that one female - moans SAM YAO: Five, Ellie? You see that, right? Zombie librarian, your three. ELLIE MAXTED: Yeah. Madam, I’ve got to say, if you took off your glasses and let your hair down - SAM YAO: She’d still be the living dead, with an actual maggot in her actual eyeball. ELLIE MAXTED: Yes. Run! SAM YAO: Right, you’ve shaken her off. She’s stuck on the stairs. Thank God for advanced staircase technology. ELLIE MAXTED: I think there’s someone else through there, Five. Should be fine. We’ll just go carefully. opens and closes BERNARD PRIOR: Runner Five! rustles What are you doing here? I was just looking up one of my erstwhile colleagues back in my days on the Sentinel. ELLIE MAXTED: Bernard? Do the Permanent Advisory Council know you spend your afternoons off ripping up One Hundred Greatest Cricketing Anecdotes by Digby Forsythe? What if this turns out to be relevant to the survival of the human race, Bernard? BERNARD PRIOR: He was a terrible writer, and he died owing me twenty quid! ELLIE MAXTED: You came all the way here for that? BERNARD PRIOR: Well, I was talking to that nice fellow Steve. They call him the Builder. He suggested I might want to get in touch with my inner anger, and when I was doing a creative writing exercise, all I could find rage about was old Diggers. Poor old Diggers. SAM YAO: Guys, I don’t want to hurry you, but a bit of the parapet just fell off the seventh floor. Maybe you should hurry? ELLIE MAXTED: Come on, rage monster. Take my spare headset. Come around with us and rescue some books. SAM YAO: Okay, okay. Nothing more’s fallen off the building, which has got to be good news. Still, bit of a problem: I’ve got cams on that floor, but there are - ELLIE MAXTED: No lights? Yeah, we see that. Or rather, we don’t see that. And this bit is handily windowless, to preserve some older manuscripts. Good thing we brought our torches, right, Abel Runner? clicks flashlight on Huh. Does it look to you like someone’s set fire to those books? BERNARD PRIOR: This one’s destroyed apart from the cover. Oh. A Celebration of Modern British Science. Included a section about Professor Van Ark. Yes, I can see why one might want to destroy a record of that. SAM YAO: Hey, guys, some of the cameras are linked up to security lighting. I think if I trigger this one, you should have some – come on Yes! Light! ELLIE MAXTED: Whoa, those are bright. BERNARD PRIOR: Wait, is that - ? Is there someone there? shatters SAM YAO: whispers Whoever it was, they didn’t like being exposed to the light. Get the books from that level, and get the hell out of there! SAM YAO: Okay, okay, I’ve got you on cams again. No one in the back stairwell. Who’s running around a library in the dark with a gun? BERNARD PRIOR: We say at our encounter group that passion for books is a positive pastime, but - SAM YAO: Listen, just get out of there. Books aren’t worth this, Ellie. We can come back another day. ELLIE MAXTED: I thought I told you, this building is crumbling. Rats are eating the books. There won’t be too many other days to come back here! And the Ministry won’t send me the resources to clear the whole place out. They say it’d take years – which it would! - but they say it’s not important. But every single book in here is someone’s life. Someone’s work, someone’s best thoughts, their passions. Someone who might be a zombie right now, and every day we leave one behind, we’ve lost someone else. And if we can save this one book, we can keep a little part of the world from being destroyed by everything awful that’s happened. Well, that’s something, at least, isn’t it? It’s really important! SAM YAO: Okay! Alright, I get it. Okay, Five, open the door to the stacks really quickly, staying low. And I should be able to see on camera if they’ve got a gun. Just be quick! ELLIE MAXTED: rustles There, got it. gunshot SAM YAO: Oh God. ELLIE MAXTED: It’s okay, it’s okay! Uh, whoever it is, they’re coming from the back stairs. And there’s a zombie at the front stairs, so we’ll go down the fire stairs in the middle of the building. Come on. BERNARD PRIOR: Good, an escape route. But who is chasing us? ELLIE MAXTED: Just keep going, Bernard. We don’t know who’s chasing us. SAM YAO: Yeah. From what we’ve seen, possibly someone who loves Spurs, or hates Van Ark, or - ELLIE MAXTED: Someone who really loves babies? Are you seeing this, Sam? SAM YAO: What, the enormous nest made of glued-together books piled up at the bottom of that staircase? The pile completely covering the door? Yeah, I’m seeing that. ELLIE MAXTED: Are you seeing that it’s an enormous nest of glued-together childcare manuals? It wasn’t you, was it, Sam? Or Maxine, or Paula? SAM YAO: Yeah, because impending parenthood is known to send people crackers. I mean, it has sent us a bit crackers. Maxine just keeps bursting into tears all the time, and Paula keeps talking about what we’ll tell the baby about her when she’s dead, which probably doesn’t help with the whole Maxine tears situation. And I keep thinking about my dad, like all the time. But no. Not crackers like that. Maybe it was a, you know, giant rat? ELLIE MAXTED: If only. Alright, we’ve got a maniac with a gun on the back stairs, a zombie librarian on the front stairs, and there’s no way we’re breaking through this insane baby book nest. Bernard, Five, any views? gunshot Zombie librarian it is! Across the building, come on, run! gunshots BERNARD PRIOR: I can see the shooter. It’s a man. He’s getting closer. ELLIE MAXTED: shouts It’s alright! We’re not going to steal the books! SAM YAO: What are you shouting that for? ELLIE MAXTED: In case he thinks we’re here to steal his books. SAM YAO: But you are here to steal the books! ELLIE MAXTED: Oh, right. Yeah. shouts We’re not stealing any of your baby books! Do you like babies? SAM YAO: Um, Ellie? ELLIE MAXTED: Just trying to make a connection with him, Sam! Can you get a good look via cams, give us any clues? SAM YAO: Yeah, let’s see. If I reroute power, I can get that one going, and – gasps Oh God! I do know who it is. You’ve got to get out of there. TOM DE LUCA: Don’t take the baby. The baby’s dead! It’s dead! ELLIE MAXTED: Yeah, that’s not creepy at all, my friend. Well, who is it? SAM YAO: It’s Janine’s brother. BERNARD PRIOR: Oh dear. I heard about him. Absolutely doolalley, isn’t he? Serial killer! TOM DE LUCA: Cut you! Cut you into pieces, and let the pieces rot into the sea! Better that way. Twice as good! SAM YAO: Yeah, that about sums him up. Last time we saw him, he was trying to carve the word “Judas” into Janine’s flesh. And he’s an MI6 trained marksman. And uh, guys, all this noise is attracting more zoms. Your librarian’s got some company at the bottom of the stairs. gunshots BERNARD PRIOR: All I wanted was to rescue some cricketing almanacs. ELLIE MAXTED: We can still do it. Runner Five, that Encyclopedia of Hypnotism’s got some heft to it. Bernard, your Wisden’s pretty robust. I say we whack the zoms and then run like the clappers. Right? SAM YAO: Oh God, you’ll never make it! There’s seven. I don’t – even if you took two each, and they didn’t recover quickly, there’d still be one - zombies splatter Or - ELLIE MAXTED: Well, Tom just shot them all. Clean headshots, each one. BERNARD PRIOR: Well done, sir! You’re not so lunatic as I’ve been led to believe! TOM DE LUCA: Think nothing of it. All in a day’s work. The task is on you next time, at the Burlington club. I’ll take it with water, not soda. SAM YAO: Uh, did you know him, Bernard? BERNARD PRIOR: Never met him before in my life! TOM DE LUCA: They left me there to rot! To rot. With all I knew, left me there to rot… SAM YAO: Best to get out of there, guys. ELLIE MAXTED: And with our books, Five. SAM YAO: Did you notice you’ve started calling Five “Five”? ELLIE MAXTED: It was a stressful situation. Still, it’s been a good day. Race you back home, Abel Runner? Codex Artefact 'A History of Cricket ' Bernard Prior is a historian, author, journalist, but most of all a cricket enthusiast. In this very personal guide, he explores the lesser-known anecdotes of the game that has consumed his life. Do you know which cricketer eats only noodles and lobster the night before playing? Can you remember which match was interrupted by a peacock? Or which famous commentator once fell asleep live on air? Read this book and you’ll be able to regale delighted friends, acquaintances and strangers with these stories and many more! Category:Mission Category:Season Four